Copenhagen Flames and FaZe Clan First Teams to Advance to Legends Stage

FaZe Clan and Copenhagen Flames are the first two teams to advance to the Legends Stage at the PGL Stockholm Major. FaZe Clan took down Virtus.Pro 2-0 while CPHF defeated Heroic, currently ranked #5. 

The Finn 'karrigan' Andersen-led team started off strong on Day 1 with wins over Team Spirit and ENCE. It was a good day for Karrigan who top-fragged in both the matches. The aggressive gameplay coupled with some excellent macro-gameplay allowed FaZe easy wins on Day 1. 

FaZe had to face Virtus.Pro in the advancement match and it was a best-of-three series. It was a risky move to pick Mirage against Karrigan’s FaZe and the start of the map was evidence why. FaZe Clan marched off to a commanding 9-2 lead although VP did manage to claw back a few rounds later in the half. The start of the map was a relatively all-around effort by FaZe, but there were a few standout performances. Rain’s ace in the 8th round was just the icing on the cake as FaZe continued its dominance in the first half.

Virtus.Pro managed to win the last few rounds in the first half to close it out at 9-6. In the second half, a dominant streak of CT rounds helped Virtus.Pro make a competitive map. With 23 and 24 kills respectively, Mareks 'YEKINDAR' Gaļinskis and Evgeny 'FL1T' Lebedev were instrumental in Virtus.Pro’s (almost) comeback. 

Karrigan and co. had a much better team on their map pick of Ancient. The first half had a similar score to MIrage with FaZe having a 3 round lead. But the dominant (and flawless) CT side allowed FaZe to ease its way to victory with a 16-6 score. 

Dzhami 'Jame' Ali had some highlight-worthy plays with the AWP including two 4ks, but it wasn’t enough to help Virtus.Pro ride to victory. There were a few instances when FaZe managed to win the round despite being at a severe player disadvantage.

With this win, FaZe Clan became the first team to qualify to the Legends stage with a 3-0 score.

CS:GO fans would remember Copenhagen Flames qualifying for the Major after a surprising 5-0 run at IEM Fall. Some players (by their own admission) didn’t know IEM Fall was an RMR event. But the Bo1 format and the team’s preparedness allowed them to top the group stage. 

Well, it’s the Major now and CPHF continues to dominate. After a clean 2-0 score on Day 1 (both were Bo1s), Copenhagen Flames proved they are not a Bo1 team. They took down the fifth-best team in the world, Heroic in a best-of-three series. It was an upset, as many fans had expected Heroic to win this series. 

Copenhagen Flames picked Vertigo, a comfortable map for themselves as their choice. A relatively even first-half was followed by a dominant CT side by the Flames. Fredrik 'roeJ' Jørgensen and Nico 'nicoodoz' Tamjidi topped the team with 20 frags each. While Nicodoz and Roej were tied for the most kills, Roej dealt the most damage on the map. CPHF has picked Vertigo on multiple occasions in the past and it is a comfort pick for the roster.

Heroic needed to win Nuke to push the series to the third map. The former World No. 1 team has some decent strats on Nuke. Despite not winning the pistol rounds in the majority of its games, Heroic has mostly managed to claw back to win the map. With a 57.1% win rate, Heroic’s statistics might not look the best, but the Danes have been playing against some of the best teams in the world regularly. The match against Copenhagen Flames, a lower-tier Danish opponent was supposed to be an easy match for Heroic.

With 31 kills on Nuke, Martin 'stavn' Lund was the star of the show and was the biggest difference between the two Danish teams. A +17 KDA, Stavn’s performance catapulted Heroic to the third map.

Heroic continued its momentum into Overpass and at one point had a 9-1 lead. While Heroic’s CT side was dominant, CPHF’s was even better. Overpass had all CPHF members within 1-2 frags of each other. Every player stepped up as CPHF won Overpass with a 16-12 score. 

With these wins, FaZe Clan and Copenhagen Flames are the first two teams from the Challengers to advance to the Legends stage. Meanwhile, Godsent and Sharks are now eliminated from the Major.

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